


It's About Love

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 11:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18755536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Five Times Mulder Tried to Propose to Scully





	It's About Love

1  
“So what was your final wish, anyway?” she asks.  
He looks at her for the longest time. Really sees her. And it’s like an implosion, sparks behind his eyes so bright, so powerful he can hear them fizzing. He takes a swig of beer. The movie plays in the background.  
“Mulder?” she asks, turning a quarter towards him. He takes her hand in his, holds it to his thigh. Her fingers beat a quiet tune in time to the music from the television.  
“I wished that you would marry me,” he says, finally.   
Her lips pop from the beer bottle and he loves that he’s taken her by surprise. It’s really something to know that you can make Dana Scully sit back, mouth open, eyes wide, speechless. It’s a lot.   
“You used your last wish on me?” She blinks and blinks.  
“You don’t need to give me an answer yet,” he says and they watch the rest of the movie.

2  
The suitcases are by the door. She’s holding William, palm pressed to his back, fingers tapping a rhythm. He’s suckling his thumb, eyes flickering under his lids. Mulder can’t imagine a more pure vision than the love of his life, the mother of his child, his son. It’s the perfect snapshot to imprint into his memory banks.  
“Just go,” she says, and her signature single tear spills. “No long goodbyes,” she says, croaking.  
Her forehead is cool, soft against his lips. William’s head is downy, perfect. She chokes out a sob and the baby startles. Her fingers pat faster, soothing him.  
“I love you, Scully. I love you both. I don’t…”  
“Go, Mulder. Please.”  
He draws them both into his embrace. So tight. So tight. There are no more words but these, he thinks. And it doesn’t matter the response.   
“I want to marry you, Scully. I want to be with you every day. I want that more than anything. When I get back, we’ll do it. We’ll get married, okay?”

3  
There’s a long stretch of blacktop, open fields either side, soft gold wheat for miles and miles. Out there, somewhere, is a life, he thinks. Out there people are living, crying, laughing, making love, fighting. Out there is normal.   
She’s driving, eyes fixed straight ahead. It’s been months of days like this. Driving through towns and past lakes and in the shadows of mountains, under rumbling grey clouds or bright blue skies. It’s been months of uncertainty.   
“Pull over,” he says.  
She taps her forefinger on the wheel, double quick. “Why?”  
“Just pull over.”  
“There’s nowhere to stop,” she grumbles but presses the brake and flicks on the blinker.  
It’s fitting, he thinks, that they’re having to dig something out of nothing.  
She turns to him, lips in full pout, ready to butt heads. He laughs a little. His combative partner, always prepared to argue, even before she knows what he’s going to say. It will never be any different. And he loves it, loves her. Will never stop loving her. Just like all the long stretches of blacktop they’ve traversed. It’s a journey.  
“Will you marry me, Scully?”  
She snuffs through her nose. Looks out of the drivers side window. At the wheat as it dances on the wind. He wants to climb inside that mind of hers and watch her thought processes. He already knows what she’s going to say. But it doesn’t matter.   
The engine turns over and they pull back onto the road, continuing the journey.

4  
The house is at the end of a long drive. He hears her leave. He hears her come back. All around are fields of nothing. Seclusion follows them. They’ve always been separate from the world. They thrive on the edges, in the shadows. Or they did. When he had purpose. Thriving, she’s thriving, he thinks. Working a new job, meeting new people, living. She’s trying to live for him too, the way she buys him new clothes, books weekend trips ‘to get him out of the house’, invites him to conference dinners.  
“I want you to meet my colleagues,” she’d say, always hopeful.  
“Next time,” he’d reply, always hopeful she wouldn’t ask again.  
But she did, she does. And now he’s in the car with her driving the long drive to the hotel where the dinner is being hosted. He’s in a suit. It feels stiff against his skin. He feels constricted. Like he can’t breathe regularly, like his heart isn’t pumping evenly. Scully looks so beautiful though, in a deep blue silky dress that swirls below her knees, her hair in some pleated twist at the back of her head, held with diamante pins.   
The room is too large, too noisy. There are smiles and questions and jokes and drinks. He finds a spot at the bar, loosens his tie, pulls on his collar. The whiskey warms his cheeks.   
“Mulder,” she says, tugging his arm. “The speeches, then dessert. Sit.”  
The man to his left is some bigwig at the hospital. He’s chatting about how he values Dana and admires Dana and can’t believe how lucky they were to get Dana. Dana, Dana, Dana.  
“How long have you been married?” he asks and Mulder laughs then. The man removes his glasses and waits for an answer.  
“Actually,” Mulder starts, “we’re living in sin. We haven’t actually…I mean, I’ve asked her but she…” He sips his drink and feels Scully behind him, twist in her seat. Feels her hand over his shoulder, pulling so that his collar digs into his Adam’s apple.  
“Mulder.” Her voice is warm like the whiskey.   
“Dana,” the man says, half-laughing. Only half. “Fox here is telling me you’re not married.”  
Her face sets. Her hand falls to her lap. There’s a hush around the table. He slides his hand into hers, brings it, clasped, to his lips. She’s shaking her head but only so he can see. They’ve travelled so long together and he knows this isn’t the right place, the right time; he knows what’s she’s going to say, but he asks anyway.  
The man claps. The others around the table do too. Scully stands up. Her chair crashes to the wooden floor.

5  
There’s nothing left. There is a dead boss, a missing son, a baby who shouldn’t be. It’s not how this was supposed to end. Not with the oily water slapping against the wall, not with the night clouds obscuring the moon, not with so much death.   
They’re standing in the frigid air, breaths meeting between them. But she might as well be sitting on his couch drinking beer, she might as well be telling him to go, she might as well be driving on a lonely road, she might as well be humiliated at a conference. He figures then there will never be a right time. Only wrong ones.  
Her body fits against his. She sniffs into his chest. “William is out there,” he says, because he knows. She does too. He wasn’t just an experiment. He was, is, their son. “We’ll find him.”  
“He doesn’t want to be found, Mulder.”  
“Not now, but one day he will.”  
She nods, rubbing her forehead against his chest. “Let’s go home.”  
She drives. She taps the steering wheel and he watches every movement, the way her nose dips when she sniffs, the way her tears glint in the street lights, the curl of her lips as she holds everything in that she wants to scream out. She is still everything. Everything.  
The house is at the end of the long drive, lonely under the dim stars that emerge every now and then. But it’s home. Their home. They shower together. She leans into him, crying still and he just holds her. She pulls his hand to her belly and he still can’t fathom it. It’s horrific, the idea of a new child in this world. Yet there’s something about it that fits. Fits the crazy pattern of their life.   
“I love you,” he whispers, pressing wet lips to her sodden hair. “I love you so much.”  
She says nothing. But he knows what she’s thinking. She’s thinking don’t, Mulder. Not now. But he will and he does. Later, wrapped in each other’s arms, in bed.  
“I’ve always loved you, Scully. You know that. And I’m still waiting for your answer.”  
“Why, Mulder? What difference would it make?”  
None, he supposes. But that’s not the point.  
“It’s not about making a difference, Scully.” The dawn chorus rises softly outside.   
“Then what is it about?”  
Her mouth is warm against his. He kisses her for the longest time.   
“It’s about staying the same.”  
“That doesn’t make any sense, Mulder.”  
He laughs gently. “I know.”  
“What if I say no?”  
“Nothing changes.”  
She wriggles closer to him. “And what if I say yes?”  
He thinks of the couch, the door, the road, the hotel. He thinks of Jackson. He thinks of Skinner. He thinks of the beginning and wonders what the end will be like. If they’re married. If they’re not, it doesn’t matter. Nothing changes. Nothing changes for them.  
It’s always just been about love.


End file.
